Women of Summer
by ingvild
Summary: 13 independent ficlets written for GW500's summer challenge. Each ficlet portrays one of the Women of Wing at one pivotal point in their storyline in canon. All are gen except the Meilan ficlet,which contains a mention of Meilan/Wufei.
1. Chapter 1: Relena

Title: Gratia Plena

Characters: Relena

Rating/Word Count: G, 708 words

Summary: Set during the series when Relena was spreading the message of peace around. An exploration of her thoughts and motives.

"Your father would have been proud of you."

Relena nods her acceptance of the compliment to the middle-aged state leader she has spent the last few hours in discussion with, and gets up to leave. The white coat which is a sign of a high-ranking member of the Peacecraft royal house is surprisingly cool in the summer heat, but the collar is a little too high and feels constrictive around her throat.

It doesn't affect her ability to speak, so she has refrained from commenting on it. Still, the coat has become symbolic of her position these days. It is not meant to be an inconvenience to her, and it aids her in her work (her position, because it encourages people to listen, and the coat, because it makes her look professional and poised and not out of her place). Relena is all too aware that she is thirty years younger than the youngest government officials that she has been talking to, and that she is one of very few females, so she uses what authority she can get in order to make her way into these talks. Little after little, her name is being spread, and getting people to listen is getting easier.

Still, she feels constrained, trapped. This is the only thing she can do to make the world better, the only thing she can do to make the world a more peaceful place. But it is slow and cumbersome work, and she cannot in good conscience convince people that she knows what is best, because the only thing she is sure of these days is that peace is and must be a group effort, and if there is one thing she has learned over her short years it is that people are more likely to fight for something (however non-violent that fighting might be) if they have had an active role in creating it.

So she admits that she is still trying to find her own way, and that the path she is taking is dangerous and may not succeed, and she makes her plea to the world leaders who are willing to listen: help me. We can only find the right road to take if we all work together.

She makes the same entreaty to the students at her school. Somehow, only the daughters of the world leaders and other important people have come to attend. She wonders if the reason the sons are being held back is that their parents and sponsors want to have an ace up their sleeves in case pacifism doesn't work this time either. She cannot quite blame them, not when she has turned a blind eye to Miss Noin's building of an underground mobile suit army. She hopes that it will never come to the point where these suits are necessary, but Relena has accepted responsibility for the people of Sank and the students at her Academy.

Her biological father, King Peacecraft, would probably not approve. But Relena was three years old when the Sank Kingdom was destroyed the first time, and everything she knows of it comes from Pagan's stories and the documents stored away in the attic or hidden in between the poetry books in the library, and she believes there is one large difference between herself and her late father:

Relena is practical.

She knows the importance of getting personally involved, of offering sanctuary to the people who need it, of building bridges between people and of moving their hearts. She knows the importance of becoming _expendable_.

When Relena is finished, she will no longer be necessary for peace; she will be only one person among many working towards a goal that they all share. She hopes that the day may come when the Sank Kingdom could be destroyed again and it would not matter. Perhaps then, she can shed this coat and this name and go back to being Relena Darlian. She will never be the naive, sheltered schoolgirl she once was, but she will not be this person either.

"Your father would have been proud of you." She wonders what the man who offered her the compliment would think if he knew that the father whose pride she seeks is not King Peacecraft.


	2. Chapter 2: Une

Title: Alea Iacta Est

Characters: Une

Rating/Word Count: G, 443 words

Summary: Une, while she races back to save the captive Gundam pilots and Gundam scientists, reflects on why she is doing exactly that.

Disclaimer/A/N: I could never create such a complex and fascinating character as Une. I can only play with her.

_Is this what they call the point of no return__?_

Colonel Lady Une, aide, executive officer and right-hand-woman of His Excellency Treize Khushrenada, ruthlessly quashes the hint of fear that has begun to rise in her chest. She does not have the time to be afraid. The situation has spiralled out of her control. The Space Fortress Barge is no longer responding to her hails.

_Damn that Tubarov_, she thinks, her upper lip curling in disgust at the thought of the engineer. _Damn Nichol, for engineering this situation._

_And damn me, too, for allowing it to happen._

Nichol hurts the worst, because she knows that he only acted as he did because he believed she was too soft to do it herself. Get her out in battle, make her wake up to the severity of the situation they are in, wake up her ruthless self. And if she dies out there, it is a loss, sure, but not a large enough loss to keep anyone sleepless at night.

Une quashes another emotion rising in her, this time disgust at having to be saved, and by _Zechs Merquise_ of all people.

_This ends now. I will be dependent on no other person._

However, if her instincts are correct, there are some people who are dependent on her right now...

Une wonders why it has become so important to her that the Gundam pilots and the scientists live. Somehow, it is now more important than her own life. Partly, it could be because they are symbols of how her authority has been taken away from her by underhanded actions and outright ignoring of her orders. However, she suspects that it is more, and also, that this is not the right mind to find the reason.

Nichol believes that she has a strong and a weak personality. She wonders when she stopped thinking the same, and found that both her personalities are equally strong, albeit in different ways.

And, if she is completely honest with herself, she must admit that her gentler personality is the one that has brought home the results. For all her hard-lining, the Colonel never got her desired results. Try to blow up a base with the Gundams in it, and they stop the missiles. Take the Colonies hostage, the pilot blows himself up to break the stalemate.

Perhaps that is why she is now racing towards Barge in order to free the remaining Gundam pilots. So far, they have been able to stop her before she did anything truly monstrous. She must repay them...

...and then, after this, perhaps she can harness both her personalities and become truly accomplished in herself.


	3. Chapter 3: Catherine

Moritu Te Salutant

Characters: Catherine

Rating/Word Count: G, 499 words

Summary/Disclaimer: Catherine is remembering her dead. None of them belong to me.

There are times when Catherine wakes up covered with cold sweat, her heart pounding, and her breath coming in short gasps because she remembers that night when her parents died and her brother disappeared from the circus.

She lies quietly in her bunk in the caravan, frozen with fear and unable to move, for minutes that feel like hours until she can hear the sounds of the circus again – the creaking of a wagon, the wind catching in the tent, the occasional snore or fart from an elephant. Nothing else.

On nights like this, she leaves her caravan and goes to sit outside, looking for the world like she is just enjoying the night sky, whether it is the real one of Earth or the artificial ones of the colonies.

In truth, she is scanning the sky for signs of an air-raid.

They came without warning back then, too, when she was only five and still living with her parents and brother. Triton was just starting to be fun back then, responding to her and even beginning to walk instead of just making a mess and crying. She didn't have to work to exhaustion just to get a smile from him – he laughed delightedly even when all she did was put a finger on his tummy and tickle.

Momma and poppa were always there to guide her when she started throwing wooden knives (they didn't trust her with steel just yet), to stand ready to catch her if she should fall off the low-strung tightrope (she never did), feed her and bandage up scrapes and sing her to sleep at night. Poppa had the nicest singing voice. Momma showed her how to grease the wheels on the wagon they all lived in.

One surprise air-raid and her family was dead or missing – and the chances of Triton finding someone to care for him are minimal, even if he should, against all odds, survive being thrown out of their father's grasp.

Back then, the skies were full of fire. Now, the skies are clear, and the only things she can hear are the creaking of wagons, wind in the tent, the sound of animals and faint snoring coming from the Bearded Lady's caravan.

There are only a handful of people left of the old circus. Catherine and the manager are two of them, the other three being the snake-people twins and the manager's wife who is also the circus' accountant. The rest of the thirty-two people strong troupe either died, were injured or have since retired. The elephants have replaced the horses, which were retired when they decided to move up to using cars and caravans instead of horse-drawn carriages. The lions came with the lion-tamer who suffered a stroke only a year after he entered their circus. And their current caretaker, Catherine's partner...

...She is used to seeing dead people when she closes her eyes. Perhaps that is why Trowa sometimes seems like a walking dead person to her.


	4. Chapter 4: Sister Helen

Title: Agnus Dei

Characters: Sister Helen, mention of Father Maxwell and Duo (unnamed)

Rating/Word Count: G, 471 words

Summary/Disclaimer: Not mine. They'd have made a better job of it. Sister Helen musing on her vocation.

A/N: Yes, I'm perfectly aware that I stole the final line from _M.A.S.H._

The young ones are always the ones who suffer.

Sister Helen has been working with Father Maxwell for a long time now, and she is starting to understand his reasoning even when he does not voice his thoughts out loud. Most often, she agrees with him, although some times she has her doubts.

There is no doubt in her mind, however, about reaching out a hand to the little ones who desperately need such a hand.

Somehow, they establish a reputation as the people who will take the task no one else wants, the people who will reach out and be humanitarian in a place where humanity is starting to lose everything that makes them more than savage beasts. When the man in charge of demolishing the house where the little ones have been squatting asks if the church will take them in, they agree without hesitation.

This is how God's will is worked, through the people willing to touch other people and show kindness.

Perhaps that is why the child cannot see it. He only sees immediate results, like the ones that quickly end a life, not the slow, steady working of someone's compassion.

He is like the people of this colony. None of them can see. They call this place the "Maxwell Church" after its caretaker, forgetting that it is part of an institution much, much older than the colony on which it is located. Somehow, this church has become the home of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, and people have forgotten that it is supposed to be a House of God.

Sister Helen's favourite bible story was always the one about the Good Samaritan.

She feels for the children, she truly does, but even if she did not, she would still do the work she does, albeit with a little less personal involvement. This is her calling, her vocation, and she will keep doing it even if her heart bleeds for the innocents she cannot save.

The church works as an emergency hospice now that there is only one child left who has not been placed with an appropriate family. Sister Helen does what she can to soothe the hurts of the wounded, and she dies a little every time there is someone she cannot help.

She prays, even as the child wonders why she bothers. She prays for strength, for skill, for her meagre abilities to be enough. She prays, even as she hears the boy wonder out loud why she does so when it is obvious that no-one will answer, because she is afraid that she iis/i the answer, and she needs her Lord to help her be equal to the task.

It is better than the alternative, she thinks to herself. The alternative is that God has heard her prayers...

...and the answer is "no".


	5. Chapter 5: Hilde

Title: Veni, Vidi, Vici

Characters: Hilde

Rating/Word Count: PG for language, 628 words

Summary/Disclaimer: Not mine. I rather wished this had been included in the series proper, actually. What Hilde did for Duo during his raid on the Moon Base had to have consequences, right?

A/N: Slightly different from my other fics, but the story demanded to be told in first person, so...

"I remember what life was like under the Alliance. Goods were restricted, food was restricted, travel was restricted, and any sign of opposition was ruthlessly crushed. When I was five, they took my mother, because she had been running an independent radio station, reporting news from all over the L2 cluster, and apparently she'd been getting too close to some things.

"When I was 9, they took my father, because his salvage business brought him into contact with some wreckage parts that couldn't be explained away, and he had taken his report to the local peace-keeping agency instead of the Alliance troops. Of course, the local agency all worked for the Alliance, and that was why he was revealed so quickly, but they said that by not going directly to the nearest Alliance headquarters, he was showing rebellion and being subversive.

"When I was 13, they took my older brothers and conscripted them to work at a mobile suit factory on a civilian residence colony. That factory was destroyed by rebel bombs, and my brothers both died. At least I know what happened to them. I have neither seen nor heard of my parents since they were taken away.

"When OZ came and threw out the Alliance, I hailed them as saviours. Finally, it was possible to get fresh fruit and vegetables again, and provided you're willing to pay out your a --- eh, out your ears, you can even get fresh meat. As long as you have a travel pass, you can travel between the colonies as much as you like.

"I was proud to join OZ. I was proud to wear the uniform, to pilot mobile suits and help recruit other young people to your ranks. I was proud to be a part of something so much bigger than myself, something that had helped throw the Alliance out on its ass, pardon my language, and help create a world with much more freedom.

"But that was before your pilots, my fellow soldiers, decided to fire upon an already damaged mobile suit. Before you broke the rules of combat. I'm not even talking about honourable combat, because that doesn't fucking exist, begging your – oh fuck it, I'm not begging your pardon. We're all soldiers here, right? We can take some crude language, can't we?

"No, those soldiers broke the rules of lawful combat, which state that 'mobile suits incapable of firing or steering shall be offered the opportunity to surrender'. Paragraph 47 subsection iii, of the 29th amendment to the Geneva Convention. Yeah, you can bet your ass that I read it.

"You lot seem to think that I was taken in by a pretty face and a cute butt, but you're wrong. He never would've changed my mind on his own. Your soldiers and how they treated him did that. And yeah, I know that he's a rebel and doesn't follow any rules. Tough shit. We were supposed to be better, but we aren't. I read that somewhere, that 'Terrorists' is just what the big army calls the little army.

"It got me thinking. About how you guys've swooped in just a bit too handily. About how you've given us just enough freedom that we've hailed you as our saviours, but you still keep us under surveillance and restrict our food through high prices and sensor our libraries and you've kept the ban on the only Colony-produced board game that ever got lasting popularity because playing it is too 'patriotic'. And about how you've been censoring our history.

"And that, officers of the review board, is why I went against orders and protected that guy. And that's why I'm standing here being court marshalled now.

"I only have one more thing to say.

"_Bite me."_


	6. Chapter 6: Dorothy

Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi

Characters: Dorothy

Rating/Word Count: PG, 595 words

Summary/Disclaimer: Not mine. Dorothy is considering the situation and her own feelings while on Libra.

She has to make them see the truth.

Mankind needs wars. They need this unique opportunity to test themselves, to try their strength against the strength of others. Man is never more beautiful than when engaged in a battle.

That was what her father believed. That was why he went to war, why he spent more time with his soldiers than with herself and her mother. If asked, Dorothy would insist that she is not bitter about that – she cannot truly blame him for wanting to spend more time with these vital, vibrant, _alive_ people than with a small girlchild and a woman more interested in the intrigue of the Romefeller court than actual battles. Sophia Catalonia was her father's daughter before she was her husband's wife, and she brought up her only child to follow in the footsteps of the Dermail line.

But Dorothy was always drawn to what her father was doing. Perhaps it is because she saw him so rarely, but she would read books on tactics, soldiers' accounts of battle, and play war games. In the midst of a court steeped in secrecy and intrigue, Dorothy was drawn to the honesty and bleak integrity of the battles. When her father died, she refused to cry. He had gone in battle, as he would have wanted.

And now she stands on the bridge of the Battleship Libra, looking at the soldiers of White Fang as they mill about. Miss Relena has been brought back to her quarters/prison, her words falling on deaf ears. Poor Miss Relena, always trying so hard, only to have her results stolen away by men with weapons. Dorothy kept challenging her in the Sank Kingdom, waiting to see how she would get out of this situation.

She wonders, briefly, why the word is 'how' and not 'if'.

She could have told her it would not work. Miss Relena's ways place too much faith in the ability of people to think independently. People are sheep, always following a leader, never questioning as long as they have food in their bellies and a roof over their heads.

She wants to think that her soldiers are different. However, Dorothy is too used to brutal truths, even though she is always circumspect about revealing them. The soldiers of White Fang, who are going about their duties without giving her more than an occasional curious (or appreciative) glance are as much sheep following their shepherd as the civilians on Earth or in the colonies.

Sheep – or sacrificial lambs.

The thought strikes her with the shock of stray lightning. These people, they are all fighting and dying – and for what? The end to all battles? The War to end all Wars? Those are not new thoughts, and they have never had the desired result.

Why is she here? To inscribe this battle in her memory, as she told Mister Milliardo, or for a different reason? Is she here to bear witness, or to die?

Did she in fact challenge Miss Relena because she wanted to know if there was a different solution after all?

Dorothy shudders and wraps her arms about herself. She is as much responsible for this situation as the rest of Romefeller, Mister Treize and Mister Milliardo. That is why she is here. Because she cannot in good conscience look away.

War took her father. Now war will take many, many others, perhaps for nothing, and all Dorothy can do is to stay with them.

After all, she cannot expect others to shoulder a burden she herself is unwilling to carry.


	7. Chapter 7: Noin

In Excelsum

Characters: Noin

Rating/Word Count: PG, 506 words

Summary/Disclaimer: Not mine. Noin does not like the situation she is in, caught in this revolution and forever following others.

Once you get down to it, Noin just wants to fly.

The rest of it – joining Oz, having a military career, giving orders, training soldiers, fighting, perhaps killing – it is all just a necessary evil. That is why she does not strive as hard as Zechs does to get that coveted position as a fighting commander. She could beat him, if she tried hard enough. She knows that. Zechs is weighed down by his past and the knowledge that he must either betray those who made him who he was, or those who made him who he is, or perhaps betray them both. Noin has no such weighs on her. However, she lacks his ambition. She does not care for medals and honours – she only wants to fly, unfettered, free.

Perhaps, one day, she may even break free of gravity itself and head into the vastness of space.

But there is no such thing as a completely free human being. All humans are bound somehow, by duty or responsibility or tradition or custom. The beggar on the street corner is bound by poverty and the need to get hands on the next meal. The children playing in the part are bound by the voice saying "come home, bathe, eat, sleep, and grow into a respectable member of society". Royalty, perhaps, are the least free, for they are bound not only by the duties of their position, but also by the thousands of eyes that are on them every day.

And what of Lucretzia Noin, child of a lemon farmer, lieutenant of Oz, instructor of soldiers, currently in the middle of a revolution?

She is not free. She will never be free. She is bound by her loyalty to a friend from her adolescence, her duty to his Excellency, her memory of her students, dead in her arms...

And she is bound by the words of that _boy_ with the black eyes and the mocking voice. Weak. She is weak. She thought she could have her cake and eat it, too. She thought she could fly without ever thinking about putting her feet on the ground, the ground which is soaked through with blood. Hers? That of her students? Or that of her victims?

She swears to Zechs that she will back him up through anything because the bonds that bind her to him are forged of friendship and so are the least painful ones, but she knows that there will be a time when he will have to break those bonds and fly a different trajectory. What then? Can she convince him to fly _with_ her, or is she just trying to keep from facing the truth by staying so close to him?

Even birds must come home to roost. Noin does not like this nest she has helped make for the world.

All fledglings must leave the nest some time. Is she strong enough? Will she be able to navigate the currents of the air, or must she always be lost in someone else's backdraft?


	8. Chapter 8: Mrs Darlian

Title: Caritas Vincit Omnia

Characters: Mrs. Darlian

Rating/Word Count: PG, 642 words

Summary: Loneliness hurts, but it does not have to be unconquerable.

The house feels empty and quiet, now, when no-one but the staff is living there.

She has dismissed most of them, keeping only the housekeeper, one maid and the gardener. There is no point anymore. She never uses the big rooms meant for social gatherings anymore, and no guests will come to run what they think is an unobtrusive glance over the furniture looking for dust. There is little to do even for the one maid and the housekeeper, and although the gardener is as busy as he always is during late spring and summer, his efforts are hardly noticed.

Mrs. Darlian walks like a ghost through her own home, from her bedroom to one sitting room to the kitchen to the porch to look out over the property with unseeing eyes.

She tries, she tries her best to find things to occupy her days. She always knew that there was a possibility that politics would claim her husband to an even greater degree than it already had, and that there was the possibility that her little Relena would leave to claim her birthright. She knew that, and she knows that what Relena is doing is necessary, but loneliness still gnaws at her heart like a festering wound. She wants her family back the way it was. She might not have seen her husband very often, since his days were taken with work, and Relena was getting to the age when she had to find out who she was, often without any need for a mother to hold her hand. Still, she could talk to them, and even if they were not there at the time, she knew they would always return.

Not so much now. Relena says that she has a job to do and will come back when she is done...but her mother knows that this is the sort of work that will never be truly done.

More, she is mortally afraid that politics will claim the life of her little girl, the way it claimed the life of her husband.

Her therapist has suggested that she finds a hobby, or takes up again some activity that she was doing before all this happened. While hiding from grief in activity is not a good thing in the long run, her therapist says, it is good to have something to do that does not involve noticing how empty the space that should have held another person is.

However, this is easier said than done. She is all too aware that her life was little more than a supplement to the life of her husband. She created her perfect home, held parties, answered invitations, and cultivated a circle of acquaintances within the families of politicians and other important people, so she could murmur a chosen piece of advice to her husband at the next social gathering: "Lord Murmont's daughter presented him with his first grandchild one week ago. Remember to congratulate him."

All of these people have conveniently disappeared along with the Alliance. Perhaps they are laying low. Perhaps they were never truly her friends, and with her husband gone they see no reason to contact her...

"Madam?" The voice of the housekeeper cuts through her bleak thoughts.

"Yes?"

"There is one Mrs. Noventa on the phone for you. She wishes to arrange a meeting."

Mrs. Darlian frowns. The Noventas were never part of her social circle. "Did she say why?"

The housekeeper nods. "Yes. She says that she met with your daughter a few weeks ago."

"Relena?"

"She says that Miss Relena suggested that the two of you might find that you have a lot in common, and would benefit from making an acquaintance."

She feels suddenly light-headed, like a cloud just lifted from her mind. Perhaps making a new friend is exactly what she needs.

"Hand me the phone, please."


	9. Chapter 9: Mariemaia

Superāre Timor

Characters: Mariemaia

Rating/Word Count: PG, 59 words

Summary: She has never known fear. She has never faced the possibility that she might be mistaken. As her world collapses around her, Mariemaia no longer has the option of avoiding these realisations.

It occurs to her, as the boy with the dark eyes and the merciless voice opens fire on her fortress, that she has never truly been afraid before. Somehow, she has gone through her life believing that she will always come out on top. Everything has been planned for her ascension, and nothing, not even Miss Relena's continuing questioning or the Gundams' attacks can be allowed to interfere with it. She believes it to be her destiny to rule the Earth Sphere. She must always show a strong, fearless front, supported by a strong, fearless internal and eternal being.

But as the shots fired from the battered Gundam's huge rifle rocks her fortress, her shelter, she is suddenly faced with the reality of her own mortality. Her eyes widen. Her voice, as she loudly decries the futility of his actions, is shaking.

"Are you afraid, Mariemaia?"

How can Miss Relena just stand there so calmly in the face of her own possible death? How can she keep that...that _serene_ expression on her face, when this person, this damned miserable person, is bringing down the building around them?

How _dare_ he, anyway? She's a _Khushrenada_, she's taking the place her father should have had, he should be bowing down to her and accept her rule! Dekim told her so, that when faced with the offspring of the best both Earth and Space has to offer, everyone would come to accept her rule.

They have to! They have to...

He's stopping! He's stopping, he won't hurt Miss Relena...why is she looking like she would accept it?

NO!

The roof is collapsing. She will die, right here, right now, her dreams as broken as her shelter. This is the end...

What? "Who are you?"

"Even though you may be mistaken, I cannot personally allow his Excellency Treize's daughter to die."

Mistaken? She is...mistaken?

Her father isn't the ruler of the Earth Sphere, he never was, and she is starting to wonder if he never meant to be. She listens to this pretty woman whose name she doesn't know yet, her mind reeling.

No! She can't be mistaken. She can't have done all this for nothing! Her rule would bring peace...unite the world under one strong ruler...

Her father died before she ever got to meet him! She has to carry out his legacy, it is the only thing she has of him!

"I am...victorious. I'm carrying out the will of my father..."

_SMACK__._

She stares at Miss Relena, her cheek stinging from the impact of the slap, but the physical hit is paling in comparison to the words. Fear? Her fear will help her overcome her mistakes?

No, not the fear, but the knowledge of what it feels like, and that she can fight past it.

It occurs to her that her father must have admired Miss Relena, who is capable of turning any situation into an advantage. If what these people are saying and implying is true...perhaps he never intended to rule. Perhaps...perhaps the people don't need someone to stand over them, but someone who'll guide them from beside them.

Perhaps...perhaps she had better overcome her fear _right now!_

The bullet's impact shocks her, but it is hardly the only shock she has received today.

Perhaps...she can now begin to atone?


	10. Chapter 10: Middie

Title: Et Tu

Characters: Middie

Rating/Word Count: PG, 399 words

Summary: War may turn children into traitors.

She can't look them in the eyes.

They think it's only because she's hurt and scared after her experiences. They don't know that she deliberately got herself into that situation, so she could attach herself to them.

So she could betray them.

Her father was wounded in an air raid, and cannot support the family. Her brothers are too young. She's the only one left to support them.

Some would say that she herself is too young, but Middie has not been young since the war began.

She hates them, although she cannot with certainty say who she means by "them". The Alliance, who would scout a young, desperate girl and turn her into a spy, a traitor? The rebels, who cannot yield under the Alliance's yoke and continue to oppose? The mercenaries, who only fight for money and oppose the Alliance because otherwise the war would be over, and they would not get paid?

Does she hate them for taking her in, for treating her kindly, making her upcoming task even harder? Does she hate No-Name, for presuming to say that they are the same?

Perhaps she hates herself most of all.

It is necessary, she tells herself. Not only to save her family, but to save the entire world. If this mercenary company falls, other mercenaries will give up their struggle against the Alliance. Without the hired guns, the Rebels will have no choice but to surrender the fight. There will be peace.

Peace, under the rule of a government that does not hesitate to turn a child into a Brutus, a Judas.

Hopefully, she will not have to _kiss_ anyone. She does not think she could manage to hide her self-disgust if she let anyone get that close.

She hates them all, she decides. The Alliance and the Rebels and the Mercs and herself the absolute most, and the universe and God and maybe even her family, a little, because without them she would never have been in this situation.

And while the hatred festers and grows inside her, pushing aside those other emotions that she does not, under any circumstances want to explore, she cooks for them and she talks to them and she avoids their eyes, because she is always, constantly, giving away their location.

Her father would be very, very disappointed.


	11. Chapter 11: Meilan

Title: Marital Arts

Characters: Meilan/Wufei

Rating/Word Count: PG-13, 524 words

Summary: Meilan could never abandon Wufei in his battle.

A/N/Warnings: I've tried, in my other fics, to write about the women and not the men through the women. In this one, it didn't quite work. Because of that, I am giving it an English title (and not at all because I don't know how to work the pun in Latin, nope, not at all).Mention of carnal relations between (manga-) canonically married fourteen year olds.

She has not abandoned him. No, she could never do that.

When her grandmother told her she was to be joined with the Chang boy, she did not object. Chang was a respectable name, and had spawned many skilled fighters.

She protested when she learned that Wufei was more interested in scholarly pursuits than fighting, and it galled her when he still bested her in hand-to-hand. How could this boy she had been joined to, who had no fighting spirit, beat her?

In the end, she knew that he would never join in the necessary struggle. He did not have the drive. But she, oh she would fight for him and her family and their colony, and she knew that one defeat did not mean the final defeat.

Wufei does not know that.

She gave her life for him because she was a warrior and he was her husband, and he needed her strength to find his own, but he does not know what to do with that strength. Is he fighting to keep her memory alive? Stupid, stupid, as long as he remembers her she will always be with him.

He calls the Gundam "Nataku", after the name she gave herself. Its embrace is colder than hers was, but it is keeping him safe and his fighting spirit high, like she did. She is with him and the machine as they fight and struggle, but she cannot do anything for him when he leaves her, leaves them. He leaves, and she can do nothing as he is defeated and his fighting spirit bleeds away.

_One defeat does not mean the final defeat!_ she cries, but she is dead, dead, gone all this time and he cannot hear her. He thinks he is no longer worthy of her, of the Gundam, of Nataku.

She wants to help him as he flounders about searching for answers, but she cannot. So much of their existence was tied up in fighting, in her revelling in it, his resistance to it, their arguing about it. Even their coupling had the feeling of a battle – the consummation of their marriage was partly teenage curiosity, but mostly a sense of duty, and neither would let the other have the upper hand – and somehow, in their struggle for superiority they both had a surprisingly enjoyable time. On several occasions.

But she can do nothing, now, to help him as he tries to make sense of things.

When he finally comes back to her, she wonders, did he loose something of himself? He has found a new meaning in battle, but she wonders if he can find a meaning outside it, now.

Her Wufei was not like that, he knew what life was like outside the metallic death machine. In trying to be a person he thinks would please her, he has lost that other self.

_Let go, Wufei_, she tries to tell him. _Let go of me before I drag you to join me too soon. Eternity is long. You can live some, first._

Even though she knows he cannot hear her, she hopes against reason that maybe he will, anyway.


	12. Chapter 12: Sally

Title: Primere Non Nocere

Characters: Sally

Rating/Word Count: PG, 500 words

Summary: Sally leaves the Alliance behind. GW not mine.

Sally has to wonder how she has managed to rise as high in the ranks as major, at times. She is altogether too conscientious for an Alliance officer.

Sally believes that their job is to protect people, not destroy them. As opinions go, this one is quite rare, both within the political and the military division of the Alliance. As the situation with the Colonies is slipping more and more away from their control, politicians and military leaders both start grumbling about needing to crush those uppity colonials under their heel once and for all.

Sally wonders how far the Colonies will go. Do they want their independence? That does not seem like a very prudent goal – the Colonies are hardly self-sufficient in terms of food supplies, and their existence out in space is a fragile one. Artillery batteries intended to shoot down stray meteors or asteroids to prevent a potentially fatal collision would not even present a credible threat if the Alliance chooses to pit their military weight against the fragile metal structures.

But as time passes, the question seems to become more and more irrelevant. The press is jumping over Vice Foreign Minister Darlian's death, believing it to be the work of colonials – Sally remembers the young girl she met, and wonders how she is doing.

More than that, she wonders which part of the puzzle she is missing. The Gundams are colony-built, but they don't seem to be representing anyone in particular. Darlian's death does not fit into even their pattern. But when she voices her suspicions to her superiors, they tell her to let it lie, with the implication that too much independent thought is discouraged. Sally chooses to stay quiet, while silently fretting over everything. What is happening? What is she missing?

The missing piece, when it finally reveals itself, comes in the shape of OZ. The death of the Alliance pacifists at the hands of a Gundam pilot – the one she examined at the hospital – fits too well with OZ's violent takeover of Alliance posts to be coincidental. Sally ignores her superior officers' orders to stay and takes a shuttle with some soldiers she can trust, and leaves to get answers. She is too late to prevent a nuclear meltdown personally, but in time to beg another to act as her proxy.

She looks at the OZ soldiers trussed up on the floor with disgust. They, as much as everyone else she has had to deal with in her career, place ambition high above human lives. But Sally is different. No matter how inconvenient it may be for her, no matter how much it may shorten her life expectancy, she will bring violence only to those who deserve it, and protect those who do not.

Sally turns on her heel and stalks out. She still has contacts back home, and those contacts have been sending messages about something bad brewing up for some time now.

It is time to strike out on her own.


	13. Chapter 13: Sylvia

Title: Ascendere

Character(s): Sylvia Noventa, mention of Heero

Rating/Word count: G, 465 words

Warnings/Disclaimer: Not mine. Nothing worse than what happened on the show.

A/N: Sylvia wasn't part of the summer challenge. I rather thought that was a pity, so I wrote a story for her anyway.

_Get up_, she tells herself. _Get up. Don't just sit there, get to your feet again. He didn't break you, now prove it!_

It doesn't help. Sylvia Noventa stays on the ground, legs no longer able to keep her standing. Around her, the wind is blowing her hair around her shoulders, seemingly much stronger than it actually is because she can hear nothing _but_ the wind. The ground is hard on her knees and her legs are getting dirty. She can smell the scent of the roses that were just placed on her grandfather's grave.

_Get up._ Her brain is screaming, but her body will not, cannot, obey.

She can still feel the weight of the gun in her hands. She can still hear his voice.

_How dare he, that base coward! How dare he put the weight of his redemption on _me!? _Haven't I suffered enough?_

There are no answers. The boy has already left, abandoned the wreckage in his wake and left her to pick up the pieces. Like when he killed her grandfather and the others.

He said he would seek out her grandmother next. Sylvia does not think she will shoot him, either. What then? Will he go to every member of her family, and if he cannot find the answer he wants there, will he go on to the families of his other victims? How far will he go in his selfish quest for redemption?

_War sucks_, Sylvia thinks firmly. This is the one thing she does not have any doubts about. War put her grandfather in a position where he had to do things he would rather not have done, war put that boy in the same position. It truly is nothing but repulsive killings.

That boy is at the heart of it, but she is still outside of it. If she had shot him, like he probably wanted, she would have been caught up in the currents of war as much as him. Throwing away that weapon was the correct choice for her…but her hands are still trembling.

He wanted her to kill him.

_No good, mister,_ she thinks wryly. _You have to find a different solution, rather than one that would destroy me._ She does not think that he intended to hurt her, but he would have anyway, if she had done what he wanted. She hopes that one day he will be able to see that.

For now, the only thing she could do was to force him to continue looking for a reason to live. And Sylvia can only do the same.

_I'm stronger than you, Heero Yuy,_ she thinks. _I can look for non-fatal solutions. I hope you can one day as well._

Sylvia takes a deep breath, and finally gets to her feet.


End file.
